Four Decades of Preservation

Although the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn was once considered among the nation’s most devastated neighborhoods, efforts to preserve its resplendent Victorian architecture have been pursued energetically for more than four decades.

The first section to be preserved, the Stuyvesant Heights Historic District, was designated in 1971. At the time, the landmarks commission conducted a much larger survey of Bedford-Stuyvesant, but the agency decided to focus on the Stuyvesant Heights area, partly because community support was robust. “Not to mention,” said Suzanne Spellen, an authority on preservation in Brooklyn, “incredible architecture that just couldn’t be denied.”

The commission had always hoped to designate more of Stuyvesant Heights as a historic district, and the Stuyvesant Heights expansion was finally designated in 2013. Two other sections of Stuyvesant Heights, along with an area called Bedford Corners, are awaiting action by the commission. The tiny Alice and Agate Courts Historic District, home to 36 Queen Anne-style rowhouses on two half-block cul-de-sacs just north of Atlantic Avenue on the border of Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights, was designated in 2008.

As for the Bedford district, it was felt that the neighborhood needed some time to better be able to boost support for landmarking. “The Landmarks Commission always knew they’d be back,” said Ms. Spellen.